Tag: Stan Covington

In this post we will dig into a few important nitty gritty points about sharpening stones everyone needs to know. Perhaps you already know all these points, but please ready your shovel because there may be at least one buried surprise.

A Flea’s-Eye View

When seen under high-magnification, the surface of a sharpening stone looks like millions of densely-packed stones embedded in a flat field. The smaller the stones, the finer the grit.

As the blade is pushed and pulled over these stones, they scratch and tear metal from the blade’s surface leaving behind scratches corresponding to the size of these small stones. This violence continues until the blade’s ura and bevel form a clean intersection of two planes.

A view of a blade sharpened with 1200 grit diamond plate showing the furrows left by individual pieces of grit

Seen under high-magnification, the cutting edge is jagged where these furrow-like scratches terminate at the cutting edge. To some degree, it may even look like a serrated sawblade. Some blades, like kitchen knives and swords, are used in a slicing motion to cut soft materials like meat and vegetables and enemy arms, and their performance benefits from a serrated cutting edge more than a highly-polished edge, and so do not need to be highly polished on fine-grit sharpening stones.

Plane and chisel blades, however, are used to cut wood, a material typically harder than foodstuffs, in a straight-on direction, not in a slicing motion, for the most part. In this situation, a rough, serrated cutting edge is weaker than a highly polished edge because the jagged edges are projecting out into space like the teeth of a handsaw blade, and are relatively unsupported and more easily damaged than a highly-polished blade with smaller, more uniform scratches terminating more cleanly at the cutting edge.

Therefore, in order to produce a sharp durable blade, we must make the microscopic cutting edge smoother and more uniform by using progressively finer grit stones to produce shallower and narrower scratches, and a thin, uniform cutting edge.

But how fine is fine enough? There is a curious phenomenon related to friction that is applicable to cutting edges, and is useful to understand.

The Friction Paradox

Imagine a cube of heavy stone with its downward flat face resting on the level, flat surface of a larger slab of similar stone. Let’s say it takes some specific measure of force pushing horizontally on the stone cube to overcome the static force of friction between the two stone surfaces in order to make the cube start moving.

If we gradually increase the degree of polish between the two contact surfaces and measure the force required to start the cube moving at each progressively higher level of polish, we will find the force decreases with each increment of increased polish, for a time. This is at least partially because the irregularities between the two surfaces (asperities) do not interlock as deeply when the surfaces become more polished.

However, at some point, more polishing brings the surfaces of the two stones into such intimate contact that the molecular attraction between them, and therefore the force necessary to move the cube, actually increases.

The Inflection Point

The same phenomenon occurs with tool blades. If you sharpen and polish your blades past a particular point, the friction and heat produced between blade and wood will increase, as will the energy that must be expended, while the resulting quality of the cut and durability of the cutting edge will not improve significantly. Of course, the time and money invested in stones spent sharpening past this point will be mostly wasted.

The inflection point where additional polishing yields increased friction with little improvement in cut quality will depend on your tool and the wood you are cutting, but you can gain a pretty good idea of where it is if you pay attention over time. While the sharpening stone manufacturers hate my saying it, in my well-informed opinion there is little practical gain, beyond self-satisfaction, to be had from sharpening chisels or planes past 6,000~8,000 grit, making this range of grit an inflection point in my mind. What about you?

Conclusion

I encourage you to conduct your own experiments to determine the inflection point in the case of your planes and wood you cut. Many who figure this out save themselves significant amounts of time and money sharpening over the long-term.

To those of our Gentle Readers that love sharpening more than woodworking, and enjoy putting money in the pockets of sharpening stone manufacturers more than keeping it for themselves, I apologize for pointing out the floater in the punch bowl. But you probably would have it noticed it eventually anyway, if only from the taste difference.

I will touch more on this important point in the next exciting installment in this scientificish adventure.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

If a craftsman wants to do good work, he must first sharpen his tools.

Confucius, The Analects

Geographic UraChisel Ura

We talked about the Ura previously in post No. 9. It is a defining detail in most Japanese woodworking blades, and one we must understand if we are to efficiently sharpen them. In his post we will look into this important feature in more detail.

What is the Ura?

Japanese plane and chisel blades have a unique and intelligent design feature at what is called the “flat” on Western plane and chisel blades, called the “Ura” (pronounced oo-rah).

Ura translates into the English language as “bay,” as in a protected area where the sea meets the shore. At the center of the ura is a hollow-ground, depressed area in the hard steel hagane layer that serves two purposes.

One purpose is to make it easier to keep the blade’s “flat” (the shiny areas surrounding the depression) planar (in the same plane).

If you pay attention when sharpening your wide Western chisels and planes you will notice that, after many sharpening sessions, the blade’s flat, which was once planar, becomes convex with a high point at the flat’s center making it difficult to keep the extreme cutting edge, especially the corners of the blade, in close contact with the sharpening stone. Yikes!

This doesn’t occur because you don’t know how to sharpen your blades, but simply because your sharpening stones/platens/paper tend to abrade the blade’s perimeter more aggressively than the center. The resulting curvature makes it more difficult to polish the flat’s extreme cutting edge. Major buzzkill.

Because of the Ura, Japanese woodworking blades are quickly fettled initially and tend to stay planar without a second thought for many years of hard use, an important benefit if you count your time worth anything.

Another purpose of the Ura is to reduce the square inches or square millimeters of hard steel you must polish during each sharpening session. As you can see from the photo above, the shiny perimeter land is all that touches the sharpening stone. Compare this with the black area which doesn’t touch the stone. That’s a lot of hard steel you don’t have to deal with. Besides making the job easier, it also saves a lot of time when sharpening and helps one’s expensive sharpening stones last longer. Time is money and stones ain’t cheap, as my old foreman used to say. Even if you don’t use your tools to make a living, remember that time spent sharpening is time stolen from the pleasure of making wooden objects.

The Downside Of the Ura

The Ura detail is not all meadow flowers and fairy farts, however, because it does have one unavoidable downside: Over many sharpening sessions the Ura unavoidably becomes gradually shallower, and the lands surrounding the Ura on four sides become correspondingly wider. It is not uncommon to see old chisels and plane blades with the depressed area of the Ura almost gone. You can postpone this day by sharpening the Ura wisely. However, in the worst case where the Ura disappears entirely, you will still be left with an entirely usable Western-style flat, so not all is lost.

In the case of plane blades, unless the plane’s ura is subjected to a brutal sharpening regime, the land that forms the cutting edge (called the “Ito ura” meaning “strand” as in a flat area on a riverside, in Japanese) tends to gradually become narrower, and even disappear entirely after numerous sharpenings. Of course, when this happens, the blade loses its cutting edge, and the land must be restored by “tapping out” or bending the cutting edge towards the ura side, and then grinding it flat to form a new ito-ura land. Tapping out a blade requires some caution, but is not difficult. I will not deal with this aspect of blade maintenance in this post.

In the case of chisels, which have smaller and shallower ura compared to wider plane blades, the land at the cutting edge does not typically require tapping out, although it’s certainly possible to tap out wider chisel blades. Narrow chisel blades, on the other hand, are difficult to tap out without damaging them due to the rigidity produced by the hard steel layer (detailed in the previous post in this series) wrapped up the blade’s sides.

Mitsuura Chisels

Some chisels are made with multiple ura, typically called “mitsuura” meaning “triple ura.” Mitsuura chisels are more difficult to sharpen because the area of hardened steel that must be polished is larger. The Ura of mitsuura chisels also tend to wear-out quicker than single-ura chisels because each individual ura is shallower in depth than standard Ura. I am not a fan of multiple ura except in a few specific applications.

In the next stage of our journey into the mysteries of sharpening, we will wander through the metaphysical realms of the “Fae.” Be sure to have a brass bench dog in your pocket when we leave the well-lighted pathways.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

A piece of hot high-carbon steel, which will become the cutting edge, has been placed on the orange-hot low-carbon steel body of a knife. An acidic flux powder has been placed in-between and on the metals in preparation for forge laminating them together into a single blade.

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If you are reading this, it’s safe to assume you are interested in sharpening woodworking blades. You may have little experience with Japanese tools, and even then you may not be aware of some of their important details. In this post we will try to remedy that by examining some simple historical points common to woodworking blades around the world, as well as some details that make Japanese blades unique.

I believe an understanding of these basic facts will you aid your sharpening efforts, or will at least tickle your interest in Japanese blades. Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

Laminated Bi-Metal Construction

As discussed in previous posts in this series, before technological advances in the 1800’s steel was difficult to make and expensive. Consequently, it was standard practice not only in Japan, but everywhere including Europe and the United States, to reduce costs by minimizing the amount of precious steel used to make axe, scythe, plane and chisel etc. blades by laminating smallish pieces of high-carbon steel to softer and much cheaper wrought-iron bodies through a process called “forge welding.”

Most chisel and plane blade blacksmiths in Japan continue to employ this lamination technique even today, not out of some navel-gazing preference for the archaic, but because it has serious advantages.

A 30mm Hidarino Ichihiro Atsunomi, approximately 12″ OAL.

The best Japanese plane and chisel blades are generally comprised of a layer of very hard high-carbon steel called “hagane” (鋼) in Japanese, forge-welded to a softer low-carbon (ideally no-carbon) iron body called “jigane” (地金). We discussed both of these metals in the previous two posts in the series. Hereand here.

Why go to so much trouble? One advantage of this construction is that it allows the cutting edge to be made much harder, and therefore cut effectively longer than a blade of uniform hardness. For instance, a blade made entirely of steel hardened to HRC65 might cut very well, but it would break or shatter in use. And even if it did not break, it would be time consuming and irritating to sharpen such a wide expanse of hard steel. Remember, the harder a piece of steel is the more work it takes to abrade it.

A 42mm Hidarino Ichihiro Oiirenomi

By combining a thin layer of this very hard steel with a thicker layer of soft low-carbon steel or wrought iron the blade can be made thick, rigid, resistant to breaking, and will hold a sharp edge relatively longer while still being easy to sharpen. This once-common ancient structure is clearly superior to all other structural systems for planes and chisels at least.

Laminated Blades in the West

If you have examined antique plane blades with wooden bodies you may have noticed many have blades stamped ” Warranted Cast Steel”

Despite being designated “cast steel” in England and America in past centuries, unlike Conan’s Daddy’s sword, or the orc blades made by in Isengard, plane, chisel and saw blades with this mark were not “cast” by pouring molten metal into a mold to form a blade. Rather the process to make the steel involved melting steel in a crucible and pouring it into molds “casting” a piece of high-carbon steel which is then forged to make the blade, hence the name.

This technology was widely used in the United States and Europe through the 1860’s. In fact, one steel mill is said to have been producing crucible steel until the 1960’s. Toolmanbloghas an interesting summary on cast steel.

With few exceptions, these plane blades have a thin piece of high-carbon steel forge-welded to a soft wrought iron body, very similar to Japanese plane blades. I have used a couple of these antique blades to make Krenovian planes and testify of their excellent cutting ability.

Chisels were also once made in Europe using this same lamination technique, although fewer examples remain extant.

Axes, hatchets, and many farming implements were also mass-produced up until the 1920’s in the US using a variation of this same technique with a “bit” of steel forming the cutting edge laminated to or sandwiched inside a body of low-carbon steel or wrought iron. Axes are still made this way in Japan. It’s a proven technique with a lot of advantages, but it does require a skilled blacksmith to pull off successfully.

The point I am trying to make is that blades made using forge-welded laminated technology were the very best available in Europe and the United States for many centuries. It is sad that this superior technology has been discarded and forgotten except in Japan, but wars and economics change everything while people remain the same.

U-Channel Construction

A closeup of the 42mm Hidarino Ichihiro Oiirenomi showing the lamination line between the steel cutting layer and low-carbon steel body of the bladeThe same 42mm Hidarino Ichihiro Oiirenomi. Notice the hard-steel lamination wrapped up the blade’s sides to add rigidity.A 30mm Hidarino Ichihiro Atsunomi, approximately 12″ OAL. Notice the hard steel lamination forming the cutting edge at the bevel. This is a beautiful lamination.A beautiful hand-filed shoulder detail typical of Yamazaki-san’s work

The shape of the hard steel cutting layer laminated to the softer low-carbon steel (or wrought iron) body was historically a simple flat plate in Western blades. This is also the case for Japanese plane blades, axes, and farming implements. But if you imagine Japanese blacksmiths would be satisfied with such a simple design for all applications, you don’t know the Japanese mind well.

Notice the lighter-colored hard steel lamination wrapped up the chisel’s sides in the four photographs above forming a “U channel” of hardened steel adding necessary rigidity and strength. This is a critical detail for Japanese chisels intended to be struck with a hammer. Interestingly, carving chisels are not typically made this way.

Plane blades are not subjected to the high loads chisels experience and so would not benefit from this structural detail.

The Ura

Japanese chisel and plane blades, among others, typically have a hollow-ground depression called the “Ura” (pronounced “ooh-rah”) which translates to “ocean” or “bay,” located at what is called the “flat” on Western blades. Notice the polished hard steel lamination extending from the cutting edge to several millimeters up the neck. The black area surrounded by the shiny lands is the same hard metal, but has been ground to form a hollow called the “ura.”

This clever and effective design detail is unique to Japanese tools to the best of my knowledge. We will look at this design detail more in the next post in this series.

The Point

What does any of this have to do with sharpening? Glad you asked. This design has some potential disadvantages that have been cleverly turned into distinct advantages you need to understand when sharpening Japanese woodworking blades.

For instance, the layer of high-carbon steel laminated into our chisels and planes is usually 64~65 HRc in hardness. The typical Western blade is made much softer at 50~55 HRc to avoid breakage. This extra hardness makes the blade stay sharper longer, an important benefit if your time is worth anything. This is good.

But if the entire blade were made of a solid piece of this extra-hard steel, it would a royal pain in the tukus to sharpen, I guarantee you. It would also break. That would be bad.

The softer low-carbon/no-carbon steel or iron body, however, is much softer and easily abraded making it possible to keep the hard steel layer thin, and therefore easily abraded, while protecting it from breaking. This is good.

Unlike the blade’s bevel, however, the ura is all one-piece of hard steel. Without the ura depression, you would need to abrade all that hard steel to initially flatten and regularly sharpen the blade, a necessity I guarantee would ruin your mellow mood without massive quantities of controlled substances. But with the addition of the ura detail, we only need to abrade the perimeter planar lands (the shiny areas in the photos above) around the ura. This is exceedingly good.

The ura depression makes it easier and quicker to not only sharpen the blade, but also to to keep the “flat” planar (in a single plane). Without the ura, such a hard blade would be difficult to maintain planar and frustrating to sharpen. With the addition of the ura, the blade is genius.

An important skill to learn when sharpening Japanese blades is how to maintain the lamination and ura effectively. We will discuss this important subject more in future posts.

Conclusion

If you didn’t learn at least three new things from this post then you are either very smart or weren’t paying attention. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the next installment in this bodice-ripping tale of romance and derring-do we will examine the hollow-ground “Ura” in more detail. It’s important enough to deserve a special post.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.

Albert Einstein

In the previous post on sharpening Japanese woodworking tool blades we looked primarily at the nature of the hard high-carbon steel used in making woodworking blades. In this post I will try to dispel some of the confusion that surrounds the other metal used in making most Japanese knives, axes and woodworking blades, namely the soft low-carbon steel called “Jigane” (地金). I hope this brief explanation will improve your understanding of some Japanese tools and aid your sharpening efforts.

Sources of Jigane

Most Japanese knives and woodworking blades are comprised of a thin piece of hard high-carbon steel, discussed in my previous post, forge-weld laminated to a piece of softer low-carbon steel or wrought iron called “Jigane” (地金) in Japanese, which translates directly to “ground metal.”

I will write more about this bi-metal lamination in the next post in this series, but for now take my word that it is essential to the performance of many types of Japanese cutting tools nowadays, and for many centuries was critical to manufacturing cutting tools in America and Europe as well.

The best jigane material for plane blade bodies is said to be scrap iron from the boilers of old trains, boats, and factories, etc.. Such boiler tanks were subjected to thousands of heating and cooling cycles during their years in service which drove out impurities, including carbon, making the iron very soft to the point of weakness.

The most desirable jigane for plane blades is called “tired” iron, named because it is not only soft, but looks weak and exhibits a visible grain along with cracks and imperfections which those familiar with Japanese plane blades covet.

A pile of jigane, probably old salvaged structural steel. Looks like boards of old wood, but it ain’t.

Wrought Iron Production

Nowadays, this very low-carbon steel, also known as “ wrought iron” is not produced in any volume for several reasons. First, demand is just too low to make it worthwhile to manufacture. Hand-forged ornamental iron is the only commercial usage besides Japanese tools, truly microscopic markets.

The second reason is that steel manufacturing processes have changed drastically in the last 100 years. For instance, it used to be that steel began as iron ore, basically rocks and dirt, which was melted and refined into low-carbon wrought iron, so wrought iron was an intermediate product of steel production. Indeed, this low-carbon product was much less expensive to produce than high-carbon steel and so was used for everything from the boilers, bridges, trains, ships and anchor chains mentioned above to axes, chisels, farming implements, machinery, what’s called “miscellaneous metals” in the construction industry, and of course plane blades. There are still a few surviving structures that were made using this archaic material.

Nowadays, things are very different. Carbon is incorporated into the steel early in the manufacturing process, so low-carbon wrought iron never becomes an intermediate product.

Also, scrap metal has become critical to steel manufacturing processes nowadays. Remember what happened to steel prices worldwide when China was buying up huge volumes of scrap metal worldwide for its Olympic infrastructure building projects?

I think we can agree that this energy-efficient cost-reducing recycling of natural materials, one that was hardly an option 150 years ago, is a very good thing. But it does have a tiny downside, namely that most commercially-available scrap metal available in any useful volume today has been through the modern steel-manufacturing process many times and already contains not only high levels of carbon, relatively speaking, but alloys such as chrome, molybdenum, and nickel from previous melting pots. Indeed, undesirable chemicals such as phosphorus, sulfur and silica tend to be high in general junkyard scrap metal. On the other hand, keeping these unintended alloys and impurities under control is a serious challenge for manufacturers of tool steel.

In summary, wrought iron simply isn’t made anymore, and it is not a sustainable, profitable product.

Japanese blacksmiths making high-quality plane blades nowadays mostly use wrought iron recycled from old anchor chains, old iron bridges, or other recycled iron structural components. If you see a hole in a plane blade, like the extra-wide plane blade pictured at the top, it once housed a rivet. Yes, structural steel was once connected with hot rivets instead of bolts. Hi-tensile modern bolts are better.

Plane Blades

A plane blade by Ogata-san in his “Nami no Hana” series using Swedish Asaab K-120 steel. Notice not only the fissures and defects, but also the striations and grain typical of soft, tired “wrought iron.”

Mr. Takeo Nakano (see his photo below) makes my plane blades. He is a kind, quite man with the outward appearance of a sedentary grandfather, but when using hammer and tongs at his forge within his dark smithy, his posture and visage reminds me of an intense Vulcan reinforcing the gates of Hades.

Like nearly all the plane blacksmiths in Niigata, he uses scrap iron obtained in a single lot many years ago from an iron bridge that was dismantled in Yokohama Japan.

Mr. Nakano at home

I am told that most of the jigane used for plane blades in Hyogo Prefecture is old recycled anchor chains.

The fissured and cracked jigane of a a 70mm plane blade by Usui Kengo, another Niigata blacksmith (RIP). Notice the rod which retains the chipbreaker is non-existent, replaced by two short stubs. An elegant detail in this plane body by Ito-san (Soh 宗).The back of the same Usui plane blade. Notice the cracks and inclusions in this excellent jigane exposed at the polished bevel. Very wabi-sabi. This jigane was once part of an iron bridge in the city of Yokohama, Japan.

In the case of plane blades, structural strength is not critical, so laminating a thin layer of high-carbon steel to form the cutting edge to a soft iron body is adequate. Indeed, the thicker the hard steel layer, the more time and effort it takes to sharpen the blade, so in a high-quality blade the thicknesses of the high-carbon steel layer and the soft jigane body will be carefully balanced to ensure the blade’s bevel rides the sharpening stones nicely and can be quickly abraded.

Plane blade blacksmiths use the same strip jigane used for chisels for making less-expensive plane blades.

Chisel Blades

In the case of chisels, while ease of sharpening is still important, the body and neck must be harder/stiffer to prevent them from bending, so a different, stiffer variety of jigane with a higher carbon content and fewer defects is used, and the steel layer is typically made thicker.

The jigane used by my chisel blacksmiths is a commercial product not produced anymore (thank goodness they have stockpiles) called “gokunantetsu” 極軟鉄 which translates directly to “extremely soft iron.” With a carbon content of 0.04~0.07%, a better description would be “very low carbon steel.” When heated and quenched, it doesn’t harden much.

The adventure will continue in the next exciting episode where we will bring it all together into a blade. Don’t forget to have popcorn and jujubes ready.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

An Alchemist and his assistants working late at night in his workshop.

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work.

Isaiah 54:16 KJV

The blades we are considering in this post are made from iron and steel, so it makes sense to examine these materials from the viewpoints of sharpness and sharpening. In the previous post we looked at some of the supernatural aspects of making and forging steel. In this post we will examine some alchemical aspects.

This post could be very technical, but I have simplified the description of chemical processes to make it easier for the non-technical Gentle Reader to follow. Please bear with me.

The Alchemy of Mutating Iron to Steel

At the heart of steel alchemy is the hardening process. When carbon is combined with iron in the right proportion, steel is formed. This mutation is easily accomplished nowadays, but for most of human history it was a fiendishly difficult, expensive process. No wonder those who could accomplish the deed were attributed with magical powers.

If steel is heated to within a specific range of temperatures (difficult to measure by eye) and then suddenly cooled, crystalline structures containing small, very hard and relatively brittle crystals called carbides form within a softer matrix of iron. These hard carbides are what do the serious job of cutting, not the softer matrix. At the extreme cutting edge, this structure might be compared to a modern circular saw blade comprised of a relatively soft body to which is attached very hard tungsten carbide cutting tips.

A steel blade dulls when these carbide crystals either shatter, or the pressure and friction of cutting wears away or cracks the softer supporting matrix, allowing the carbides to be torn from the matrix leaving behind gaps of soft, blunt metal. The larger the carbide clumps are and the further the distance between them, the more easily they are shattered and torn away, and the duller a blade becomes with each crystal’s failure.

In a low-quality blade, and given the same number of carbide crystals in a fixed volume of steel, the crystals will form into relatively large and isolated clumps separated by wide rivers and lakes of softer metal, as seen from the viewpoint of a carbide. The steel will crack along these weaker pathways when stressed, and when cutting, the softer material in these lakes and rivers will erode first, leaving the carbide clumps unsupported and vulnerable to failure.

In a high-quality steel blade, by comparison, and given the same number of carbide crystals in a fixed volume of steel, the crystalline clumps are comparatively smaller and distributed more evenly throughout the matrix making it more resistant to erosion, and the carbide crystals more resistant to damage. Such steel is called “fine grained,” and has been highly prized since ancient times for its relative toughness and ability to become very sharp and stay sharp for a long time. This is the steel preferred by woodworking professionals in Japan and is the only kind found in our tools. Without exception.

Impurities and Alloys

All iron ores naturally contain harmful impurities such as phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, and manganese to one degree or another. When these impurities exceed acceptable limits, they can weaken the steel, make it brittle, or make heat treatment results inconsistent. They are often expensive to remove.

There are three approaches commonly used to minimize the negative effects of these difficult-to-remove impurities. The first is simple avoidance of the problem by employing iron ore and scrap metal free of excess amounts of these contaminants. Such ore and scrap are available, but they are not found everywhere and are relatively expensive. For centuries, the purest iron ore has been mined in Sweden.

The second approach is to add purer iron or carefully sorted and tested scrap steel to the pot thereby reducing the percentages of the harmful contaminants. This is called “ solution by dilution.”

Nakaya Takijiro’s saw forge, originally made for forging swords

The third and more common fix is to add chemicals such as chrome, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten, vanadium and even lead to the pot forming steel “alloys.” In their simplest formulations, these chemicals help overcome the detrimental effects of natural impurities, specifically those related to brittleness and unpredictable heat treatment results. Some formulations make the steel less likely to warp and crack despite impurities. Others make the steel more resistant to abrasion and corrosion, or even easier to cast, drop-forge, or machine.

Steel alloys have serious advantages over plain high-carbon steel in mass-production, reducing material costs by improving the performance of cheaper lower-grade iron ore and scrap metal, improving manufacture characteristics, and achieving higher productivity with fewer rejects even when worked by low-skill workers.

But these alloys are not all fuzzy blue bunnies and fairy farts because edged tools made from high-alloy steels typically have some disadvantages too: Due to their crystalline structure, they simply cannot be made as sharp as plain high-carbon steel, and are more difficult and time-consuming to sharpen by hand.

Of course, additives like chrome, nickel, moly and especially tungsten are costly.

Some manufacturers cite the higher costs of high-alloy steels to justify higher prices for their products. However, what they never say out-loud is that labor costs are much much less when using high-alloy steel because skilled workers are not necessary. And because high-alloy steels produce fewer rejects, quality control is easier, overall productivity is higher, warranty problems are fewer, and profitability is increased. Indeed, without high-alloy steels, factories would need to train and hire actual skilled workers and professionals instead of uneducated seasonal workers destroying the world’s current mass-production model. Egads! Walmart’s shelves would be bare!

My blacksmiths make only professional-grade tools for craftsmen that value ease of sharpening and cutting performance above corporate profits. They charge more for plain high-carbon steel blades than for high-alloy steel products because labor and reject costs are higher. So if a manufacturer brags about the excellence of the high-alloy steels they are using rest assured increased profits are their motivation, not improved cutting performance. Caveat emptor baby.

Japanese Steels

The best plane and chisel blades are made from plain, high-purity, high-carbon steel. In Japan, the very best such steel is made by Hitachi Metals mostly using Swedish pig iron and carefully tested industrial scrap (vs used used rebar and car bumpers), and is designated Shirogami (White-label) No. 1. They also make a steel designated Shirogami No.2 containing less carbon. Another excellent steel for plane and chisel blades is designated Aogami (Blue-label) No.1 and No. 2.

Aogami, like Shirogami, is made from extremely pure iron, but a bit of chrome and molybdenum are added to make Aogami steel easier to heat treat with less warping. Aogami can be made very sharp, but it is not quite as easy or pleasant to sharpen as Shirogami. Some of the plain high-carbon Swedish steels are also excellent.

If worked expertly, either of these steels consistently produce the highest quality “fine-grained” steel blades.

Let’s compare the sharpening characteristics of these two steels. To begin with Shirogami steel is easy, indeed pleasant, to sharpen. It rides stones nicely and abrades quickly in a controlled manner.

Aogami steel, by comparison, is neither difficult nor unpleasant to sharpen, but it is different from Shirogami steel in subtle ways. It takes a few more strokes to sharpen, and feels “stickier” on the stones, but it will still produce fine-grain steel blades and performs perfectly.

Inexperienced people lacking advanced sharpening skills typically can’t tell the difference between blades made from Shirogami, Aogami or Swedish steel and steels of lesser quality. But due to the difficulty of forging and heat treating Shirogami or other plain high-carbon steels, a blacksmith that routinely uses them will simply be more skilled and have better QC procedures than those whose skills limit them to using only less-sensitive high-alloy steels.

Professional Japanese woodworkers insist on chisel blades made from Shirogami steel. Some prefer Aogami for plane blades believing the edge holds up a bit better. My plane blacksmith and carving chisel blacksmith prefer to use Aogami because it is easier to work and more productive (especially in the case of carving chisels), but for a little extra they are happy to forge blades from Shirogami or Swedish Steel.

I own and use Japanese planes made from Shirogami, Aogami, Aogami Super, Swedish steel, and a steel called “Inukubi” meaning “dog neck” which was imported to Japan from England (Andrews Steel) in the late 1800’s. Of these, Shirogami No.1 steel is my favorite. It’s a matter of personal taste.

Beware of a plane blacksmith that refuses to use plain high-carbon steel and tries to charge you more for Aogami or Aogami Super steel.

The Challenges of Working Plain High-Carbon Steel

What makes plain high-carbon steel so difficult to work, you ask? I’ve never even forged a check much less a tool blade, but I will share with you what the blacksmiths I use and swordsmiths I know have told me in response to this question.

First, plain high-carbon steel is much more difficult to successfully heat treat because the range of allowable temperatures for forging and heat-treating is narrow. Heat it too hot and it will “burn” and be ruined. Quench it at too high or too low a temperature and it will not achieve the desired hardness. Miss the appropriate range of temperatures and the blade may even crack, ruining it. Yikes.

Second, even if the temperatures are right, plain high-carbon steel has a nasty habit of warping and cracking during heat treatment resulting in more rejects than steels with additives such as chrome and moly. Strange as it may seem, when the crystalline structures that make steel useful form during quenching, they increase in volume. This change in volume produces differential expansion causing the metal to warp. This warpage can be more or less controlled, or at least compensated for, by a skillful blacksmith, but it takes real skill, extra work, and a bit of luck. Not just any old Barney can do it consistently, so when working plain high-carbon steel, a blacksmith needs to know his stuff and pay close attention.

Other than wastage due to rejects, it doesn’t cost more to forge and heat-treat a blade of plain high-carbon steel. But it takes serious skills and dedication to quality control to make a living working it for 5+ decades.

Let me give you an example of skill and experience as it relates to warpage management of plain high-carbon steel.

The photo below is of a swordsmith the instant before he quenches a yellow-hot sword blade made of tamahagane, a traditional type of plain high-carbon steel made from iron sand, in a water trough. Notice the condition of his smithy: he is working in the middle of the night, the time when the best magicians and alchemists have always done the most difficult jobs because temperatures are easier to judge without unpredictable sunlight confusing things. His posture and facial expression are tense because he is about to roll the bones and either succeed in the most risky part of making a sword, or fail wasting weeks or months of work and thousands of dollars worth of materials. Notice how straight the glowing blade is.

A Japanese swordsmith with a blade poised for quenching Notice how straight the blade is. He has invested months of work into this blade to this point and a misjudgment or even bad luck in the next second can waste it all. Not a job for the inexperienced or timid.

Note that the formation of crystalline carbides in Japanese swords after heat treatment is densest nearest the hard cutting edge. The swordsmith therefore forges the blade straight before quenching it in expectation of it warping to the intended curvature when the crystalline structures at the cutting edge form, as seen in the photo below. This curvature is an intentional design feature that takes years of experience to achieve in a controlled manner.

After quenching, the warpage is dramatic. Notice the mud applied to the blade before quenching to control the formation of crystalline structures.

If the swordsmith intended to make a straight sword blade, he would have a forged a reverse curvature into the blade to compensate for the warpage that occurs during quenching. Plane and chisel blades exhibit similar but less dramatic behavior.

Both sides of a similar completed sword with the warpage an intentional design feature

The thinner the piece of steel being heat-treated, the more unpredictable the warpage and more likely the blade will develop fatal cracks. Within limits simple warpage can be corrected in thin blades, but not in stiffer chisels or plane blades. In the first few seconds after quenching and/or tempering a blade, the metal is still a bit malleable and warpage can be corrected to some degree by bending and twisting the still-hot blade. An experienced blacksmith will not rely solely on corrective measures but will anticipate warpage and create a curve or twist in the opposite direction when forging to compensate in advance of quenching. This takes skill and experience, and even then, some rejects are unavoidable.

Chemical alloys like chrome, molybdenum, and tungsten greatly reduce warping and the risk of cracking.

None of this is mystical, but tools made from plain high-carbon steels such as Aogami steel and especially Shirogami steel require more skill and experience than those possessed by factory workers, much less Chinese peasants, so mass-production is nearly impossible, labor costs are higher, profit margins are smaller, and advertising budgets are non-existent. No wonder such tools get little attention from the corporate shills in the woodworking press.

While modern chemistry has unveiled the mystery of steel, it has only been during the last 60 or 70 years that metallurgical techniques have been developed making it possible to understand and control steel manufacturing.

The manufacture and working of steel are still magical processes that are the foundation of modern civilization. Make no mistake: without steel and the skill to work it, human life on this planet would be short and brutal.

If you have good sharpening skills but haven’t yet tried chisel or plane blades made from Shirogami, Aogami or Asaab K-120 Swedish steel, you’re missing a treat.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”

Albert Einstein, The World as I See It

The blades we are considering in this series of posts about sharpening are made from iron and steel, so it makes sense to examine these materials from the viewpoints of sharpness and sharpening. Let’s look at some of the supernatural and legendary aspects of working steel first.

Steel Magic

Steel is a magical substance. Since ancient times, the blacksmiths that worked it were sometimes seen as gods, sometimes as wizards. Regardless of local traditions, the power blacksmiths possessed to combine and shape the elements of earth, wind, water, fire and even spirit into the tools and weapons of everyman’s trade was seen as magical.

Even the blacksmith’s forge and anvil were seen as magical in and of themselves, and rituals incorporating them were widely believed to keep evil at bay, provide good luck and blessings, and even to cure ailments.

There were several extremely famous magical blacksmiths back in the mists of time. Allow me to present two of them to you.

Vulcan the God

The bas-relief stone carving in the photo above is of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and blacksmithing, also known as Hephaestus to the Greeks. This carving was excavated at Herculaneum, located in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius near Pompei. Herculaneum was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in 79 AD. The word “volcano” comes from the word Vulcan, so a stone carving of Vulcan retrieved from a town totally destroyed by Vulcan’s namesake is tragically ironic in the extreme.

The painting by Diego Velázquez above is from a scene in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses where the god Apollo visits the god Vulcan in his forge to tell him that Venus, Vulcan’s wife, is being naughty with Mars, the god of war. Apollo is on the far left and can be recognized by his crown of laurel and shining aura. Vulcan stands next to Apollo with a shocked and incredulous expression on his less-than-beautiful face (nice abs, but his beard needs a lot of work). Vulcan’s assistants have stopped their work on armour (decidedly 15th century in style) astounded by both the sudden appearance of Apollo and the news he delivers.

Obviously, Venus and Vulcan were not a happy couple. Legend says that whenever Venus was unfaithful, Vulcan grew angry and beat hammer on anvil so fiercely that sparks and smoke rose up from the top of Mount Etna on the island of Sicily, under which he had built a forge, creating a volcanic eruption.

Perhaps Apollo is sharing this tidbit of news just to help out his old buddy Vulcan, or perhaps his reason for snitching is malicious. Whatever the reason, I think it’s safe to assume people loved drama in the 1600’s too. Nothing new under the sun.

My point is that Vulcan (Hephaestus) was not only worshipped in ancient Greece but had a presence in popular culture that ranged from before an Etruscan tribe drained the swamps that became Rome in the 10th century BC, to as late as the 1600’s. And I won’t even get into Trekkie lore. Now that’s an influential craftsman.

Wayland the Smith

Wayland the Smith was another famous blacksmith, metalworker, and magician. He was said to be a Lord of the Elvish folk who learned his trade from either giants or dwarves.

While not as old as Vulcan in human history, Wayland’s legend survives throughout Europe, and the products of his forge were central to heroic traditions of many peoples and kingdoms since the days of the first Viking longboats.

He is credited in Norse, Germanic, and Anglo-saxon legends and literature with forging magical objects of great renown, including rings of power, the impenetrable coat of ring mail worn by Beowulf during his epic battle with Grendel, the magical sword named Gram that Sigurd used to slay the dragon Fafnir, and even King Arthur’s sword Excalibur. Not just scribblers, but even Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons c.886~899 on the island that would later become England, wrote of him.

The chains on the legs of the statue above probably represent his maiming and imprisonment on an island at the pleasure of an evil Norse king upon whom he took a bizarre revenge involving unconventional drinking bowls and jewelry. Is Wayland’s slavery one of the reasons blacksmiths have wrapped chains around their anvils since ancient times, or is the purpose just to secure the anvil and mute the bright ringing sound they make? Another mystery…

Wayland’s influence in modern times is not insignificant. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci’s fascination with flying machines was probably stimulated by the legends of Wayland building and using a winged contraption to escape slavery. And unlike Daedalu’s deadly device in Greek legend, Wayland’s didn’t melt.

Daedalus (the bald guy) and his son Icarus (the falling guy) using wings to escape the island of Crete, home of labyrinths and monsters. Against his father’s advice, Icarus flew too near the son melting the wax securing the feathers that made the wings function. Oops.

The legends of Wayland the Smith were once deadly serious matters.

In a lighter vein, the writings of J.R.R. Tolkein, the author of the most popular works of written fiction in human history (no kidding), were influenced by these legends.

The Blacksmith’s Shop

While some blacksmithing traditions such as those involving Vulcan and Wayland are decidedly pagan in origin, others fit well with Christianity. For example, the ring of the blacksmith’s hammer on his anvil was once believed to strengthen the chains that bind the devil in hell barring him and his demons from God-fearing folk’s hearths. In darker times in human history the blacksmith’s workshop was believed by many to be a safe haven from evil forces, one that Satan and his imps actively avoided.

The village smithy. Notice the horseshoe on the wall in the background, and its downward orientation. Due to the lack of char marks on the wall, we can tell this is not where the smith normally hangs horseshoes to cool. There is method to the madness.

Here is a link to a charming story about why blacksmiths ring their anvils and how to make sure a horseshoe brings you luck at work and at home. I encourage you to read it. Legend of the Ringing Anvil

The Japanese Smithy

If you have ever spent time in small one-man traditional smithies of the sort where our blacksmiths labor to produce the tools we carry then you know the other-worldly atmosphere typical of such workplaces. Imagine walls and exposed wooden roof beams blackened with 70+ decades of soot, the compacted but lumpy dirt floor, the darkness of carefully-managed sunlight (the better to judge metal temperatures by eye), the bitter smells of charcoal fumes, straw ash, flux, hot steel and burning oil; the roar of forced gas forges; the sounds of grinders and the antique leather belt systems that drive them; and finally the terrible racket and vibration of spring hammers and ringing anvils. A man that could work alone in a place like that 12 hours a day for 70 years is not afraid of your run-of-the-mill demon.

It’s quite a sight to see a craftsman working in such an environment. They often start late in the morning to avoid noise complaints from the neighbors, and work until late at night doing heat treating when sunlight won’t interfere with the colors of the hot metal.

By noon their arms are black to the elbows and charcoal smudges are on their faces. The sight of a small, wizened 82 year-old man with strong sinewy arms staring into yellow-hot steel as he hammers the hell out of it is a truly medieval scene. Something of the ancient magic of Vulcan and Wayland can be felt in such places.

Mr. Junichi Takagi, Japan’s last adze blacksmith, passed away April 2, 2019. A kind man, talented blacksmith and excellent sharpener. He will be missed especially since he had no apprentices and no one will carry on his work.Mr. Takagi working on his wet grinder in August 2018.

In the next post we will examine some alchemical aspects of the Mystery of Steel.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”

Confucius

This post may not be as entertaining as my previous ones on the subject of sharpening Japanese woodworking tool blades: No swords or artwork or handsome Hollywood philosophers, I’m sorry to say. But with this post we will roll up our sleeves and dig into unartistic nitty gritty. I pray tender sensibilities are not offended. Many of my Gentle Readers already know most of what I will present in this post, but it is my fervent hope that one or two useful gems are hidden among the gritty.

You know the difference between the quality of work a sharp edge performs compared to that of a dull edge. Cuts are clean and finished surfaces are smooth, maybe even shimmering. Your tools are happy, singing and chirping as they cut away. But have you given thought to what a sharp edge really is?

Since the purpose of sharpening is to produce this condition in a blade, a clear understanding is useful. We will consider the basics in this post.

We shall also examine the naughty cutting edge that seems sharp but suddenly and unexpectedly dulls after just a little use. Would it be useful to know how to detect such a cutting edge before it fails wasting your time and money?

Let’s begin with bedrock basics.

The Basics

A cutting tool is essentially a wedge, with two flat sides meeting at an angle. Applying force causes it to sever materials, be it wood, metal, meat or mushrooms.

The geometry of this wedge is critical to its performance. At one extreme, the angle could be 90°. It won’t be sharp, it will be hard to push, and it will crush and tear wood instead of cutting it cleanly, but it will be durable.

At the other extreme, the wedge might be made more acute, say 3°. It could be extremely sharp indeed, but it would be too fragile to cut anything but whip cream for long. The point is that the sharp edge is a compromise, acute enough to cut well, but not so acute that cutting pressure and friction will make it dent, roll, wear away, crack or chip easily.

The effective blade must have a bevel angle that cuts the intended material well for a relatively long time. The words “well” and “long” in the previous sentence are where the magic lies. We will examine these important points in future posts in this series.

Germ’s Eye View

The extreme edge of the ideal metal tool’s extreme cutting should be perfectly smooth and only a single molecule thick. In the real world, cutting edges are rougher and wider, but still manage to cut pretty well.

Examine a sharp cutting edge under a microscope, and you will see imperfections. A dull blade will look even worse of course, showing dents, rips, and even cracks.

The edge created by an 800 grit stoneStill sharp but starting to wearA dulled and dented knife blade

Using a blade wears away and damages the cutting edge rounding and flattening it, destroying the geometry that makes it an effective wedge. Sharpening is the process of (1) restoring the intended wedge geometry; and (2) removing defects from the meeting of the wedge’s sides by abrading metal from one or both sides down past any damage, leaving a relatively clean, uniform wedge with minimal defects. This is the sharp edge. It is what the wood experiences. It requires effort to achieve, but it ain’t rocket surgery.

The most difficult part of achieving the two objectives listed above is making nothing from something, in a place that cannot be seen. Now that’s a Zen koan.

Building confidence in one’s ability to achieve results at the microscopic level is not easy. The key is to understand the goal, and to consistently follow reliable procedures. I will describe those goals and procedures in future posts in this series.

Edge Failure

The ideal cutting edge is uniformly sharp, but few edges in the real world meet these severe criteria at the microscopic level where it matters most. A blade may be sharp in some places, and dull in others. Likewise, a blade may cut well for a while and then dull quickly and suddenly. We have all experienced these irritating failures.

One common cause of these inconsistencies and failures is that the edge is sharp only because it has a defect called a burr. Burrs by themselves can be sharp indeed, but they are fragile and can bend, roll over, or break off at the root suddenly and unpredictably creating a nasty dull edge in an instant. A truly sharp edge will not just feel sharp, but will stay sharp for a relatively long time because it is properly shaped and well supported, instead of being only temporarily sharp because of an irregular and fragile burr.

I call burrs a “defect” because they are, but creating a burr is an important step in making a sharp edge. The trick is to continue to refine the wedge after the burr is created until it is gone and the edge is as perfect as we can reasonably expect to make it. Stop the refinement work too soon, or fail to do it completely, and all or part of that unreliable burr may survive to cause trouble.

So how does one tell if an edge is properly sharp and free of deceptive burrs without using a scanning electron microscope?

Do you remember ‘Nando’s philosophy described in my previous post? One must use reverse logic from our latin lover. Don’t rely on mahvelous appearance. Don’t rely on bar room tricks like shaving arm hair or cutting strips of paper. Develop skills and train your senses other than eyesight to detect the shape of steel at the microscopic level. This may sound strange but it is possible because your nerve endings are microscopic and can sense the difference between a burr and a truly sharp edge.

I will save the explanation of detailed techniques for a future post, but for now, here are two essential skills: Use your fingerprints to detect the presence and size of burrs. Use you fingernails to check the condition of the burr and determine when the blade is ready to move onto the next stone in the sharpening process. Please don’t cut yourself.

In the meantime, let’s have some pleasure before pain. Prepare to be amazed, Ladies and Germs, because in Part 6, coming soon, The Mystery of Steel will unfold before your very eyes! There will be marble relief carvings, bronze statues, oil paintings, gods and demons, death and destruction, and even a pagan soap opera about forbidden love. Oh my! We’re in negotiations for the movie rights now ♫꒰･‿･๑꒱ and need someone to play Vulcan. If anyone knows Spiderman’s agent, please have his people contact my people right away.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

A few weeks ago I posted an article about seismic dampers used on a high-rise building currently under construction near my office in Marunouchi Tokyo (a 3 minute walk from Tokyo Station). I pass this same jobsite on foot several times a week and take the occasional snapshot. I have other construction sites ongoing, but no high-rise buildings right now, and none that non-disclosure agreements will allow me to share with you. So this is a good opportunity to introduce you to some lesser-known details about major construction work in Tokyo as seen from the sidewalk without risk of offending any clients.

Please notice the gentleman in the orange uniform and big boots in the picture above. I have never met him before, but judging by the color of his uniform, he’s an employee with Obayashi Corporation, one of Japan’s largest and arguably most competent general contractors. I have done a lot of work with this company and respect it a great deal.

Sir Norman Foster, a famous British architect and the designer of Apple’s Campus 2 in Cupertino, California once said that Obayashi Corp is the world’s best general contractor. I tend to agree. And I say this as someone that used to work for two of Obayashi’s competitors in Japan, and who has also worked with many other contractors around the world. If you have visited the Boulder Dam near Las Vegas, Nevada recently, you probably drove over Obayashi’s bridge spanning the gorge.

Anyway, please notice that this erstwhile young man is he wearing what looks like a thick coat all puffed up like a marshmallow on a sunny day in mid-August in 37℃ (98°F) temperatures in the shade and 76% relative humidity? Is he loco, Cisco?

Setting aside the somewhat inelegant safety boots and rolled trouser cuffs which do not help the fashion statement his ensemble is making, you will notice a round white grill on his coat near his elbow. There is an identical grill on the opposite side of the coat you can’t see.

If you haven’t already guessed, the two round grills are actually battery-powered fans pulling outside air into the coat and pushing it out at his collar and wrists cooling our young contractor as he labors diligently in the heat.

A two-fan cool coat

These “fan coats” are very popular in Japan. They can make a big difference so long as one can perspire adequately and are credited with saving many construction workers from heat stroke and even death in hot months.

They also come in kiddie sizes and many colors.

Makita makes a “Cordless Fan Jacket” that is sold on Amazon overseas for a lot more than it costs in Japan. Instead of two fans, it has a single fan at the back. I have not used the Makita product and can’t endorse it.

The Makita Cordless Fan Jacket. Notice the high, stiff collar directing moving air over his neck for better cooling, and the fan unit at his back. The cord is leading to the angle grinder he is using, not to the fan.

I hope the weather in your neck of the woods is always balmy with cool breezes in summer so a coat like this is never useful. In the meantime, I’m just waiting for someone to develop steel-toed boots with cooling fans. (ツ)

YMHOS

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” Your information will remain confidential (we’re not evil Google or incompetent facebook).

In the first post in this series, we examined the two main categories of Japanese chisels: the tatakinomi designed to be struck with hammer, and the tsukinomi used to pare wood without using a hammer. Beginning with this post we will shift our focus to several varieties of tsukinomi.

If you need to cut precise joints in wood, then you need both striking and paring chisels.

The most popular variety of tsukinomi is the mentori usunomi (面取り薄鑿）which translates to “beveled thin chisel.” The name is appropriate as the blade is long and thin and the neck gently tapered.

Description

Just as with oiirenomi, the blades of tsukinomi can be made with different profiles, such as the rectangular cross-section of the kakuuchi, or the more triangular cross-section of the shinogi.

The usunomi has the more streamlined cross-section of the mentori oiirenomi with two bevels ground into the right and left sides of the blade’s face, flowing over the shoulders and feathering into the neck.

An atsunomi or oiirenomi can pare joints, of course, but the steel crown and mushroomed wood fibers on the handle’s end make them uncomfortable for such jobs. More importantly, the blades and handles of these chisels are often too short to provide adequate angular control. In short, the usunomi is more comfortable to use, and pares wood more powerfully and more precisely.

Western paring chisels by comparison are even thinner and have longer blades than Japanese paring chisels. There can be no denying they do a fine job. Japanese paring chisels like the usunomi have a few potential advantages worth considering, however.

The most significant advantage is that the steel cutting edges of Japanese paring chisels are much harder. The paring chisels my blacksmiths forge are around 65~66 Rc , whereas Western paring chisels are usually around 55 Rc. A Western style paring chisel with its thin blade of uniform steel hardened to 65 Rc would easily snap in half if stressed. This extra-hard steel makes possible an edge that stays sharper longer, with the result that, given the same number of sharpening opportunities and time in a given workday, a professional-grade usunomi will help you do more hours of high-quality work than a softer blade. For craftsmen that use their tools to feed their families this higher-level of performance is not something to be sniffed at.

The second advantage of the Japanese paring chisel is their hollow-ground ura which makes it easier to maintain a flat bearing surface. If you haven’t used Japanese chisels, this claim may sound unlikely. But please recall that there are narrow lands surrounding the ura, all in the same plane, that create a flat bearing surface to guide the chisel.

Usage

This tool is well-suited to reaching into narrow mortises and other wood joints to clean and pare surfaces roughed out by axe, adze, saw and tatakinomi to precise tolerances.

It excels at trimming mortise side walls and end walls. And shaving tenon cheeks and shoulders to precise dimensions without causing spelching or cutting too deeply as shoulder planes are wont to do is a piece of cake.

In addition, the longer blade and flat face of the usunomi make it ideal for paring angles, such a 45° mitres, in combination with wooden guide blocks or jigs.

The usunomi may be struck with the heel of the hand, but never with a hammer or mallet. The slender neck, thin blade, and unreinforced handle will simply not accept such abuse gracefully.

Chisels intended to be struck with a hammer typically perform best with a cutting edge bevel of 27~30°. Any shallower and the hard steel at the cutting edge may chip instantly dulling the tool. However, the cutting edges of usunomi along with other tsukinomi are not normally subjected to the high stresses chisels motivated with hammers must endure, so the cutting efficiency can be increased by lowering the angle to 24° or so without creating problems, depending of course, on the wood you need to pare and the type of paring you intend. For instance, paring end grain may require a steeper angle than long grain.

If you have used long-bladed Western chisels hard for a few years, you will have no doubt experienced your chisel’s flat becoming somewhat rounded over many sharpenings. This occurs because, for various reasons, the center portion of the blade’s flat is abraded at a slower rate when being sharpened than the blade’s perimeter, resulting in distortion regardless of whether you keep your stones perfectly flat or not.

Obviously, a chisel with a flat that is banana-shaped lengthwise and crosswise is not ideal for paring flat surfaces, but there is a bigger problem. Namely, it is simply more difficult and time-consuming to create a sharp edge on a blade with a curved flat than one with a true flat. A flat like this begs for amateurish tricks using rulers, etc.. of the sort professionals would be embarrassed to use. A friend once scathingly described these techniques as “training wheels.” Oh my.

The ura on the Japanese chisel is specifically designed to deal with this shortcoming, and it does a great job of it.

The 30mm usunomi in the photo above has an ura with three hollow-ground areas instead of one. This detail is called a ” mitsuura” ミツ浦 meaning ”triple ura.” It has the advantage of providing a larger bearing surface than the standard ura does, one that is helpful when using wooden jigs for paring to precise angles, for instance. It also helps the ura index better when paring large surfaces, especially with chisel blades wider than 24mm.

Some people prefer chisels with the mitsuura detail for their appearance. I admit mitsuura look sexy, but I am not a fan of using this detail unless it is truly necessary because of the downsides I will not deal with in this already overlong post.

If I can liken the atsunomi to a shire horse, then the usunomi is a falcon. Both are beautiful powerful animals, but just as one wouldn’t use a draught horse to chase down a rabbit, or a peregrin to pull a plow, neither oiirenomi nor atsunomi are as effective as the usunomi for paring and cleaning joints.

The usunomi is one of those tools that is a pleasure to use.

Among woodworking tools, the usunomi is special: as it becomes part of your hand, you will discover that neither the blade nor your hand but your mind is shaping the wood.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” Your information will remain confidential (we’re not evil Google or incompetent facebook).

For a change of pace, I would like to share this charming folktale from Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, of a sort traditionally told to small children.

I have included photo extracts from the Kasuga Gongen Genki E (春日権現験記絵) scrolls painted in 1309 on silk using silver and gold paints, showing carpenters working on the Kasuga Temple jobsite.

My children and I enjoyed this story. Perhaps you and yours will too.

The Tale of Tengo and Tenjin

Long long ago and far far away, there was a very good carpenter. But he was sad because he lived alone.

So he went to the prettiest girl in the village and asked her to be his bride.

She did not want to marry, but to put him off without hurting his feelings, she decided to charge him with an impossible task.

“If you will build me a big house, with 60 tatami mats, in a single day, then I will marry you.” (60 tatami mats = approx 99 square meters = 1065 sqft based on the standard modern tatami mat)

The carpenter was shocked by this demand, but because he wanted her for his bride, he boldly accepted the challenge saying: “I will build you this house in one day.”

His voice rang with confidence, but he despaired in his heart knowing he could not build such a large and beautiful house in one day. He fretted to himself “ what shall I do, what shall I do?”

But never fear, Gentle Reader, because as you have probably guessed, our carpenter was no ordinary fellow to give up easily, and before long he came up with a daring plan.

He made 2,000 dolls out of straw and breathed on each one while casting a magical spell transforming them all into human carpenters.

The carpenter planned the building, and he and his 2,000 man crew went to work.

A cross-section of the Carpenter’s plan (dimensions are in Sun (pronounced soon) and meters). Notice the coved & coffered ceiling in the family room on the right. The essence of traditional Japanese structural engineering in wood can also be seen in this cross-section drawing: All structural members are subject to compression, or bending moments, but no tension. No trusses.Images from the “Kasuga Gongen Genki E,” completed in 1309The Master Carpenter and his helper use a water trough as a water level for layout. He uses a vertical string of a fixed length with a plumb bob attached to check the high stringline’s height above the water’s surface to adjust the line to be approximately level.A crew of 3 carpenters excavate a hole and compact the soil at the intersection of two low stringlines installed by the Master Carpenter in preparation for placing a natural foundation stone, probably intended to support a main columnCarpenters use spear planes to flatten and smooth boards and a round column. Notice the wood shavings curling from the curved blades, some on the push stroke and others on the pull stroke. Spear planes were used in Japan long before blade-in-block planes became common. The guy working on the board’s right hand end appears to have his left thumb stuck in his left eye. I hate it when that happens!The carpenters in the upper right use chisels and wedges to split timbers, while the other workers to the left use adzes to dimension and clean split boards. One appears to be of African persuasion.The carpenter and his young helper in the drawing’s upper half use a sumitsubo (inkpot) to snap a straight line on a timber in preparation for splitting it into boards. The carpenter at the lower right closes his left eye and focuses on his sumitsubo line, which he is using as a plumbline, to orient his steel square to vertical against the log’s end. At the same time, His buddy on the opposite end is using his bamboo pen and steel square to mark a similar vertical line on the log’s end. He wet the end of his bamboo pen with ink from the reservoir of his classic split-tail sumitsub0 laying on the ground near his foot. Notice how an adze is used to keep the log in-place.Carpenters erecting the building’s structure. No ginpoles, shoes, or tie-offs are in sight. Probably no hardhats either. And the scaffolding looks hinky. Tisk, tisk! What would OSHA say?A diagonal view of the Coved & Coffered ceiling installed at the family roomA corner view of the family room’s coved & coffered ceiling. Notice the coped joints. This work is typically performed by joiners, not carpenters.The living room has an even more elegant coved & coffered ceiling in plane-finished raw Hinoki woodThe living room’s coved & coffered ceiling in Hinoki wood with a carved “rainbow beam” in the foreground. Nice work!

With the assistance of his 2,000 helpers, the carpenter completed building his bride-to-be’s house before the sun went down that day,

Overjoyed, the carpenter flew to the pretty girl’s house to tell her of his success. “I have finished the house you asked for. Please marry me now!”

“Truly?” she asked. She went to see and found a big, beautiful house with 60 tatami mats, just as she had conditioned. “I will marry you.” she said.

And thus the prettiest girl in the village became the carpenter’s bride.

The carpenter and his bride then moved into their happy new home.

Afterwards, the 2,000 carpenters scattered throughout Japan and for many years taught others how to build houses, temples, bridges and many beautiful things of wood.

After several happy years had passed, the bride said to her husband “I have been silent up to now, but the time has come to tell you the whole truth. I am not really a human being. I am an angel named Tenjin. I came down to earth from the kingdom of heaven. But the time has now come for me to return to heaven.”

The carpenter replied: “Ah, well, now that you mention it, I am not a human being either. I’m a carpenter god named Tengo. Let’s both return to heaven together.”

So Tengo and Tenjin rose high into heaven where they still live together happily ever after.

The End

YMHOS

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